Wouter Loos

Wouter Loos was a soldier on board the Dutch East India Company ship Batavia, which sank on Morning Reef in the Wallabi Group of the Houtman Abrolhos Islands off the coast of Western Australia in 1629. Loos had a critical role in the subsequent Batavia Mutiny, becoming the leader of the mutiny after the original leader, Jeronimus Cornelisz (Corneliszoon), was captured.

Most participants in the mutiny were subject to judicial torture as part of their examination. Loos managed to resist the torture and diminish his culpability, and so he was not among the seven ringleaders who were hanged on Long Island on 2 October 1629. However, on 27 October Pelsaert reopened Loos' investigation, the result of the Predikant's daughter Judith raising his complicity in the massacre of her family. This re-examination revealed the true extent of his involvement. Upon his guilt being determined the ship's council then made an unusual decision: instead of hanging Loos, he would be marooned on the coast, along with Jan Pelgrom de Bye van Bemel. De Bye, an 18-year-old cabin boy, had been due to be hanged on 2 October, but had been reprieved due to his youth.

Subsequently, on 16 November 1629, Loos and de Bye were abandoned on the Western Australian coast, probably at the mouth of the Hutt River, with a small boat, trade goods and 'provided with everything. 'They were issued a set of instructions which urged them to 'make themselves known to the folk of this land.' Thus Wouter Loos and Jan Pelgrom de Bye became the first Europeans to become resident in Australia, but they were never heard of again.

Their Ghosts May Be Heard (1994) is a detailed exploration of the fate of the Dutch mariners cast away on the Western Australian coast in the 1600s and early 1700s.

Gerritsen was involved in establishing that some 16% of Nhanda, an Aboriginal language of the central west coast of Western Australia, was apparently derived from Dutch as a result of interaction with marooned sailors. This discovery led to major reevaluation in the perceptions of the early prehistory, in that Aboriginal Australians were not mute witnesses to the unfolding events of history but active participants who embraced parts of European culture long before the British settlement of the continent.

Gerritsen also researched the location where two mutineers from the Batavia mutiny, possibly Australia's first European settlers, were marooned on 16 November 1629. As a consequence of his research Gerritsen established that Hutt River, 500 kilometres (310 mi) north of Perth, was the site where Wouter Loos and Jan Pelgrom de Bye first set foot on mainland Australia

The VOC Historical Society, in collaboration with coastal Aboriginal communities and geneticists in The Netherlands, is investigating the possible existence of a genetic link between VOC shipwreck survivors and current members of the community. Should the work prove that such a link exists, it would settle all the speculation that exists today about what might have happened to the survivors. It would also mean that Europeans settled in Australia long before its Colonial history began and thereby change Australia's early European history. See how many VOC shipwreck survivors there were. See also: Embassies, Consulates and Consulates General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (Organisation) DNA 1 (Project) Involved organisations: Australia on the Map: A Division of the Australasian Hydrographic Society VOC Historical Society Involved experts: Pieter Bol